The Worst Bathroom In New York City

New York Times article caught my eye today: It was written by a journalist that has been covering the worst of New York's housing. This is her description of the worst bathroom she came across.

When he opened the door to his apartment, I was hit with an overpowering smell of moisture. Justin said that a pipe had burst last January, gushing enough scalding water to turn the bathroom into a mold-filled, 24-hour steam room. Water damage had wrecked the floors. They were so rotted that you could dip your arm up to your elbow into the floorboard below the toilet. Meanwhile, huge chunks of the ceiling were missing, and you could see into the rafters above...

That bathroom was the worst I had ever seen in New York. It looked like a hurricane had hit it (I’m from Florida; I’ve seen a water-logged bathroom after a hurricane, and Lorillard was just as bad)...

A few days later, I pulled the building’s violation report. The landlord was supposed to have certified that the bathroom was fixed two days before, but hadn’t bothered. (It would take four more months, until April of this year — April! — for the city to complete the repairs.) I also took a look at its 311 records. Two hundred and sixty two calls had been made by Lorillard residents that year. Daniel, the new father, did in fact register 12 311 complaints on a single day in May; 11 on a single day in June. Justin and his mother, on the other hand, had made only one 311 call — back in January, to report the broken sink pipes and the collapsing ceiling in the bathroom.

I don't think I need a picture of this one.

Here is the full article